


To Build an Igloo (Symbolically)

by sahiya



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Alcohol, Christmas, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-10
Updated: 2009-12-10
Packaged: 2017-10-04 07:45:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sahiya/pseuds/sahiya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which LA is snowed under and our watchers wait it out with whisky, mulled wine, and at least one hare-brained idea.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Build an Igloo (Symbolically)

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the [Drunken Giles Ficathon](http://lostgirlslair.livejournal.com/425320.html) for [](http://lostgirlslair.livejournal.com/profile)[**lostgirlslair**](http://lostgirlslair.livejournal.com/), who wanted Giles/Wesley, a winter holiday not of this dimension, and a quiet evening after a busy day. I didn't quite manage the slash, but I think I hit everything else. Thanks for running the ficathon! And thanks very much to [](http://fuzzyboo03.livejournal.com/profile)[**fuzzyboo03**](http://fuzzyboo03.livejournal.com/) for beta reading.

The mulled wine simmered quietly on the stove, pervading Wesley's flat with the heady scent of cinnamon and cloves. Giles inhaled deeply, pleased to be smelling anything untainted by sulfur. The lounge of the flat was still a bit of a shambles - the remnants of their earlier spell-casting were scattered about and the rough chalk pentagram had yet to be vacuumed up. They'd disposed of the more unpleasant ingredients immediately, but the rotten egg smell had lingered, annoyingly defiant in the face of Wesley's efforts with Lysol.

They could have gone out until it dissipated, except that LA was more or less snowed under at the moment. The Grayoc'hon demons they'd spent the afternoon forcing back to their own dimension had been wreaking havoc with Southern California's weather for days now, trying to force the weather patterns of an arid desert region to match the patterns of their snow-smothered home dimension for a celebration of their winter holiday. Giles had known something was wrong but not what, until Wesley had rung him from LA with a positive ID on the demons the day before.

A year ago, Buffy would have made the two-hour trek between Sunnydale and LA with him, Giles thought with some bitterness. But she was on holiday from university at the moment, and upon hearing that there would be more spell-casting than "ass-kicking" involved, she'd begged off. "That's what Gileses are for," she'd said airily. "And Wesleys, too, apparently. Have fun with that."

Giles had refrained from answering that he would, thank you. But now, sitting on the sofa in Wesley's flat with the scent of Christmas in the air, he was just as glad Buffy had chosen not to come. It would take a day or two for LA to recover from the supernatural blizzard; until then he was trapped here.Buffy would have found it intolerable; Giles, somewhat to his surprise, found that he did not.

"Cinnamon, cloves – what else do you like in your mulled wine?" Wesley asked, popping his head out of the kitchen.

"My father always added Cointreau," Giles said, levering himself off the sofa. "And orange juice, if it was too strong. Do you have any fruit we might slice up?"

Wesley looked dubious. "I'm not sure. I've not braved the bottom drawer of my fridge in some months, I must admit."

"Possibly not then. No matter, we'll make do." Giles slipped past Wesley and into the kitchen. He gave the wine a stir and turned the heat down. "It needs to simmer another hour or so."

Wesley nodded, then smiled, a little shyly. "I have a very nice single malt to occupy us till then."

"Oh, lovely." Thank goodness Wesley's tastes ran less towards tasteless, watery American beer and more toward single malts and French reds. It was almost a pity to mull the vintage Giles had brought with him. But hot, spiced wine had been a holiday staple at both their homes, and the chances of ever sharing another snowed-in Christmas in LA seemed unlikely, to say the least.

Giles poured them both whisky on the rocks, clinked glasses with Wesley, and sipped. Smoky and complex. Excellent. Better than what he kept in the back of his cupboard. Much better than what he'd been drinking on his own of late.

"You know, I did some research into the Grayoc'hon winter festival," Wesley said, leaning back against his kitchen counter.

"Oh?"

"I wanted to make sure it wasn't the sort of festival that ends in apocalypse." Giles raised his glass in acknowledgment. "It's not," Wesley went on. "Whole clans gather and build a snow structure, like an immense igloo, and spend the three longest nights of the year there. They exchange gifts – their gift-giving protocol was beyond me, I'm afraid – and cast spells to aid in prosperity for the coming year. And carouse, let us not forget that."

"Sounds familiar."

"Indeed." Wesley sipped his whisky a bit regretfully. "They're actually very friendly demons, it's a shame these wouldn't listen to reason."

"Well, we couldn't very well let them go on dumping snow on Los Angeles," Giles pointed out. "The city just isn't made for it, people have _died_."

"Oh, I know. It just . . ." Wesley hesitated.

"Sounded like fun?" Giles supplied.

Wesley flushed, with embarrassment or whisky, Giles didn't know. "Quite."

"You know . . ." Giles glanced outside. "How much snow do you think is on the ground right now? Two feet? Three?"

"Something like that. Why?"

"The building has a courtyard, doesn't it? We could do it."

Wesley blinked at him. "Do what? The Grayoc'hon winter festival?"

Giles swallowed the last of his whiskey, appreciating the burn. "Yes."

"Giles, really," Wesley folded his arms over his chest, "it isn't necessary."

"I know it's not necessary, but you said yourself it sounded like fun." And if anyone had ever needed a bit of fun, it was Wesley. He'd got darker and edgier since he left Sunnydale, Giles thought, but certainly no happier.He'd hardly smiled since Giles had arrived, not even when their spell had worked.

"The snow won't last three days," Wesley pointed out.

"That truly is not the point."

"I know, but – what will the neighbors think?"

"Who bloody cares? Finish your whisky and put on a scarf. We're going out." Giles turned on his heel and strode down the hall, determined to dig his good wool scarf and leather gloves out of his overnight bag. Genuine leather would not interfere with a casting like a synthetic material might.

Ten minutes later the two of them stood in the courtyard. The night sky was brilliant overhead, as the snow had knocked out power lines across the city. It was a few degrees warmer than it had been that afternoon, but Giles could still see his breath on every exhale as he shined a torch around the courtyard, taking in snow-covered shrubs and bicycles and a larger lump he assumed to be a toolshed. The garden hose would be frozen solid, he suspected, but that was all right. He could do that bit by magic.

"I brought the whisky bottle," Wesley said, wading over to Giles. "I thought it might make this mad plan of yours make more sense."

"Unlikely, but I applaud the sentiment." Giles raised an eyebrow as Wesley took a pull straight from the source. "Isn't it a little early for drinking from the bottle?"

"Rupert, I'm up to my arse in snow in my courtyard in Los Angeles because you've decided, for reasons passing understanding, that we must _build an igloo_."

"And spend the night in it. Point taken. Give it here." Giles sipped from the bottle, though to avoid being smote by the ghost of his father, he did take a moment to taste it appreciatively. He handed the bottle back to Wesley. "Right, then," he said, clapping his hands together. "Down to business." He stood for a moment with his hands on his hips, surveying the courtyard."Hmm."

Wesley took the whisky bottle back. "And how, exactly, does one build an igloo?"

"Well, one must build a, a," Giles gestured vaguely, "a snow-based structure and then carve it out. And then freeze it."

"I see."

"It can't be that hard." Giles took the bottle back and sipped again, several times. For warming purposes, of course. "Eskimos do it."

"Eskimos have a great deal more snow than we do," Wesley pointed out, "and also other Eskimos to show them how to do it without losing fingers and toes to frostbite or ending up buried alive under their failed efforts. Really, Rupert, I don't think this is going to work."

Giles sighed, but the truth was that now that he was down here, he was beginning to come to the same conclusion. The whisky disagreed, but Giles had long ago learned not to listen to it. It lied. "Oh, very well. What do you suggest?"

"I have a tent, a good tent – don't ask me why, it was an assignment for Angel. It's meant to be used in the snow."

"But it's not an igloo."

"No, but it could serve as a sort of, of _symbolic_ igloo."

"A symbolic igloo?"

"We can still do the spell-casting and the gift-giving."

"Well, I'm afraid my gift for you is currently simmering on the stove," Giles said, "but all right. That sounds acceptable."

"Thank Christ," Wesley muttered, screwing the top back on the much-drained whisky bottle. "Even with all the whisky my feet are half-numb."

Together they trooped back up to the flat. Wesley retrieved the tent from the back of a closet, while Giles checked on the wine. He tasted it and added more Cointreau, then considered the whisky bottle. Perhaps not, he decided, but brandy would add a certain something. He added a generous portion to the pot, along with a splash of orange juice. It would be done at about the same time they finished with the tent, he decided, and if not they were blotted enough from the whisky that it wouldn't matter.

Setting up a tent half-drunk – all right, all-drunk – in the snow, in the dark, was enough of a production that Giles was glad they'd not attempted the igloo. Not that the igloo wouldn't have been brilliant, but they weren't schoolboys anymore. Giles could only be glad of it, since he'd not have liked Wesley at all when they were at school. Wesley at fifteen had been very similar to Wesley at thirty, Giles was almost certain, just as he was certain that neither of them was at all similar to Wesley at thirty-one. A year had wrought impressive changes in the man, though Giles worried at some of them. Wesley was attacking the tent a bit grimly, all things considered.

Their negotiation of the poles, the tent canvas, the snow, the torch, and each other took longer than Giles had expected. Then Wesley - somewhat unexpectedly - had the very clever idea of packing snow over the canvas so it would at least _look_ like an igloo. The tip of Giles's nose and his ears were frozen by the time they were done, and his fingers had gone numb. Though he suspected some of that might have been the whisky.

"Right then," Giles said, standing back at last. "Think it'll hold?"

"Probably. And if not, at least we won't be buried under ice. Snow, yes, but we can dig our way out of snow."

"Good point. Shall we procure provisions?"

"_Procure provisions_," Wesley muttered, trailing Giles back into the building and up to the flat. "You do mean the wine, don't you?"

"But of course."

In the end, the provisions were slightly more complicated than that. Giles, poking about in Wesley's cupboards for something to keep the wine hot, found a loaf of French bread that hadn't gone entirely brick-like, and Wesley turned up a bit of cheese in the refrigerator. They ladled the wine, steaming hot and so red it was almost black, into a stainless steel coffee thermos. Giles carried the food and wine, while Wesley took charge of a couple of sleeping bags he'd dug out of the same closet as the tent. Somehow they managed not to go arse-over-tea kettle down the stairs and into the courtyard, where their small, snow-covered tent awaited them. They crawled inside and spread out the sleeping bags by the light of the torch, then sat, cross-legged, facing each other.

"Well." Giles poured some of the wine into the cap of the thermos for himself and passed the thermos to Wesley. He raised the cap. "Happy Christmas."

"Happy Christmas," Wesley returned. "And happy unpronounceable Grayoc'hon winter festival."

"Indeed." They toasted, thermos to thermos cap, and drank. It didn't burn going down like the whisky, but it was pleasantly hot, warming Giles all the way to the tips of his fingers and even the thoroughly frozen tip of his nose. He tasted the red wine, complex and rich, and beneath that the brandy, the cinnamon and cloves, the Cointreau and the splash of orange juice. Giles drained the thermos cap and held it out to be refilled, which Wesley did with alacrity.

"So here we sit," Wesley said, "in our symbolic igloo with our wine and our whisky for symbolic carousing. What does that leave?"

"Gift-giving and spell-casting," Giles said, sipping his wine. It was as good a mulled wine as he'd ever had. It was unfortunate he was in no shape to appreciate it properly.

"You've already given me your gift." Wesley raised the thermos and topped off Giles's cap. "Now it's my turn."

Giles shook his head. "No, you provided the whisky. You needn't -"

"It's tradition," Wesley said with mock severity. His face was shadowed, lean, and dangerous by the light of the torch. It gave his handsome features a slightly sinister cast. "We are watchers, Rupert. We must obey tradition."

Giles snorted, but shrugged. "Very well."

"Good." Wesley turned and withdrew something tucked into the sleeping bag on which he sat. "I noticed you were missing this from your collection last year when we packed up the library. I lost mine this year and bought a new one - and then, of course, mine turned up."

"Of course," Giles said, smiling. The book was heavy, with a blood red leather cover. He turned it over. Therseus's Compendium of Daemons. First edition. He ran his fingers over the cover - calf's skin. He felt his mouth fall open. "Wesley - this must have cost -"

"Impolite, Rupert," Wesley admonished, sipping his wine. "And this is not cheap plonk we're drinking, either."

"No, but -" Giles swallowed the rest of his protest. It was impolite, as Wesley said. "Thank you. I'm afraid my father's copy didn't survive his slayer, and I never got around to buying my own." His father's copy had been a modern edition of the original, with a quite average hardcover binding, the illustrations mere reproductions with nothing like the level of detail in the original engravings. It had been a book; this was a work of art.

"You're welcome." Wesley cleared his throat. "Now. Spell-casting. I believe this is more your domain than mine."

"Hmm." Giles forced himself to set his book aside, though his fingers itched to page through it. Instead, he considered briefly the matter of spell-casting while inebriated. Spells for prosperity and luck, such as the Grayoc'hon traditionally cast, were unreliable at best, and leather gloves or no, something was bound to go wrong if he attempted anything complicated. But a small spell could surely do no harm. One for warmth and light on what was surely the coldest, darkest night LA had seen in decades, if not centuries. "How are you at conjuring?"

"Complete rubbish. I've no real power and even less training."

Giles was unsurprised. "No matter. Here, give me your hands - gloves off," Giles added, noting that Wesley's were synthetic. Wesley stripped them off and held his hands out. Giles held them loosely in his own, then, after a moment, stripped his gloves off as well. Leather didn't interfere, but skin-to-skin was better for this sort of casting. "Just relax. Let your mind go blank." Giles closed his eyes and reached out, questing with mystical fingertips for Wesley's power. Ah, there it was. He nudged it, then frowned as it nudged back, much more forcefully than Giles had expected. No real power? What idiot had told him that?

Never mind. Giles needn't wonder, really. The elder Wyndam-Pryce's reputation as the greatest prat the council had ever produced preceded him.

"Feel that?" Giles asked.

"Mmm."

"Good. Now think of a blue flame. A large candle, nothing more." Their fingers were linked together physically now, even as Giles prodded Wesley's latent power into mingling with his own. "Now let go."

"Let go?"

"Of a little bit of your power - just enough - like that - there." Giles opened his eyes.

A warm blue flame danced in the air between them, throwing shadows and light across the walls of the tent. Giles turned the torch off and sat, watching it in satisfaction. He glanced across at Wesley. A quiet smile graced his lips, widening slightly when he caught Giles's eyes. "We did that," he said.

"We did," Giles agreed, savoring both the warmth of the fire and of Wesley's smile. He held out his thermos cap for more wine. Wesley poured it, one eye still on the flickering blue flame. "Don't worry, it won't catch the tent on fire."

Wesley passed his hand over it, carefully. "It's warm, though."

Giles smiled. "That's the magic."

Wesley smiled at him again. In sharp contrast to the torchlight, the blue flame softened all of his features, making him appear ten years younger. Giles's heart ached a little, though he wasn't sure why.

"Wesley -" Giles said, just as Wesley said, "Rupert -"

Both of them made _go on_ gestures, then smiled at each other ruefully. Things between them felt suddenly awkward in a way they hadn't heretofore, and Giles reached for his wine, hoping it would dispel some of the strangeness. Thankfully, Wesley took it as a sign to speak and said, "I just wanted to say - I wish we'd been friends in Sunnydale."

Giles sighed. "That would have been simpler all around."

Wesley stared down at the thermos. "I know it wasn't possible, and yet . . ."

Giles drained the last of his wine and decided to hell with it. "I was too hard on you," he said.

Wesley looked up. "Don't be -"

"I was," Giles insisted. "I could have at least tried. Not undercut you at every opportunity."

Wesley shrugged. "To be honest, I'm not sure it would have mattered. I'd made up my mind about you long before we ever met. I was determined to be everything you weren't, and nothing you were. Even if you had set out to - to mentor me, I doubt I would have ever accepted it." He sighed. "It doesn't matter now, of course."

"No," Giles said quietly, "I suppose not." And it didn't, not really, save that the last year might have been easier for them both if they had had each other to rely on. Giles had gone too long without a real friend, an equal, and he was not entirely certain Wesley had ever had one. "I suppose all we can do," he added at last, "is vow to do better from now on."

Wesley smiled. "That, I'll gladly do."

"Excellent. Is there any wine left?"

"Just enough, I think."

It was a mouthful or two at most, but Giles hardly thought he needed more than that at this stage. "To the new year being better than the last," he said, holding up his thermos cap.

"To friendship."

"To snow at Christmas."

"To mulled wine."

"To . . ." Giles glanced about and couldn't help himself. He snorted helplessly. "To _igloos_!"

Wesley barked out a laugh. "_Symbolic_ igloos!"

They toasted. Giles drained the last of his wine and set the thermos cap aside, then unbuttoned his coat and unwound his scarf from around his neck. It was getting warmer.

_Fin._


End file.
